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Cover of Men Are Better Than Women

The other day, a woman I know asked me if I wanted to be on a panel at TechWeek. The panel was about how to make a living at blogging. One of the panelists couldn't make it. She wanted to know if I would fill in. Sure, I said.

1. It's hard out there for a geek.

I know I'm at the right place when I get off the train, and the guy in front of me is wearing khaki shorts with white socks pulled up to his mid-calves and carrying a laptop. I make my way into the conference. There are a lot of men. There are some women, but there are way more men then women.

I find the room where the panel I'm going to be on will be. But the room has been changed. The room has been changed to a smaller one. There could be many reasons for this, but I'm guessing this is because there are not a lot of people signed up to see this panel. The panel is about blogging for a living, but all the people on the panel and the moderator are women. When I looked at all the different panels on all the different days on the schedule, I saw most of the panels were all-male, and there were very few panels where all the panelists were women. There was one, though. It was called: "Social Media Magic: A Woman's Touch."

By the time the panel I'm on, the one about blogging for a living, is starting the room is maybe two-thirds full. Most of the people in the room are men, but there are quite a few women, as well. The panel begins. The moderator asks us questions, and we answer. How did we get started blogging. What's a good way to get people to read your blog. What are ways to make money blogging. At one point, I say something like, "Figure out what everyone else is doing, and then do the opposite." I realize this sounds good, but I am not entirely sure that it works.

Eventually, people in the audience start asking questions. One guy starts his question by saying, "Content, in this case, is queen." Another person wants to know how much traffic we get on our blogs. A very pretty young blond in the back of the room says creepy old guys are following her on social media, and what should she do?

After a while, the panel ends. I sort of feel like advice has been given, but I don't know how many ideas have been discussed. I wonder what would've happened if Dave Winer or Jay Rosen had been part of the panel. I think maybe the discussion would have been more abstract and less literal. I wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

2. Women are all about feelings.

I don't necessarily believe this. That women are all about feelings. But this is what a woman on the panel I go to next, the one that is called "Social Media Magic: A Woman's Touch," says when the moderator asks her why women are so good at social media. All the people on this panel are women. Is this because women are better at social media, or because only women were available, or because this is supposed to be a discussion about women and social media? I wonder if I, a woman, am good at social media. I wonder if men are better than women at social media, but men don't create panels called "Social Media Magic: A Man's Touch," where they sit around and talk about this fact. I am better at Twitter than Facebook, or at least I think I am, and I wonder if any conclusions can be drawn about social media at all. Most of the women give introductions about themselves that are very long. I wonder if social media is a good place for women because women like to talk about themselves, and where they like to shop, and other people.

The moderator makes a joke about how the name of the panel makes it sound like this panel is about vibrators, and there is a smattering of laughter. As the panel soldiers on, I realize most of these women are interested in affiliating themselves with brands. That is, a novelist is interested in writing a novel. But these women work with social media and want to align themselves with big companies. That is their goal. They talk about Pepsi, Coke, PayPal, and Mountain Dew. They allude to getting paid what I assume everyone imagines are large sums to work with these companies, and I start to wonder if this is what social media and blogging have become. Ways to make money. I think about how when I started blogging in 2002, people were still like, "Blog? That is the worst name." I think things have come a long way, but to what end?